The question of how the human brain represents and organizes conceptual knowledge seems impossibly complicated to answer, given how even simple nouns, such as "celery," might be expected to activate neurons in various areas, such as those involved in eating and tasting. In a Research Article in the 30 May 2008 Science, Mitchell et al. described a computational model that can actually predict the human brain activity associated with the meanings of nouns .
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Identifying variations in DNA that increase susceptibility to disease is one of the primary aims of genetic studies using a forward genetics approach. However, identification of disease-susceptibility genes by means of such studies provides limited functional information on how genes lead to disease. In fact, in most cases there is an absence of functional information altogether, preventing a definitive identification of the susceptibility gene or genes. Here we develop an alternative to the classic forward genetics approach for dissecting complex disease traits where, instead of identifying susceptibility genes directly affected by variations in DNA, we identify gene networks that are perturbed by susceptibility loci and that in turn lead to disease. Application of this method to liver and adipose gene expression data generated from a segregating mouse population results in the identification of a macrophage-enriched network supported as having a causal relationship with disease traits associated with metabolic syndrome. Three genes in this network, lipoprotein lipase (Lpl), lactamase (Lactb) and protein phosphatase 1-like (Ppm1l), are validated as previously unknown obesity genes, strengthening the association between this network and metabolic disease traits .
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Common human diseases result from the interplay of many genes and environmental factors. Therefore, a more integrative biology approach is needed to unravel the complexity and causes of such diseases. To elucidate the complexity of common human diseases such as obesity, we have analysed the expression of 23,720 transcripts in large population-based blood and adipose tissue cohorts comprehensively assessed for various phenotypes, including traits related to clinical obesity. In contrast to the blood expression profiles, we observed a marked correlation between gene expression in adipose tissue and obesity-related traits. Genome-wide linkage and association mapping revealed a highly significant genetic component to gene expression traits, including a strong genetic effect of proximal (cis) signals, with 50% of the cis signals overlapping between the two tissues profiled. Here we demonstrate an extensive transcriptional network constructed from the human adipose data that exhibits significant overlap with similar network modules constructed from mouse adipose data. A core network module in humans and mice was identified that is enriched for genes involved in the inflammatory and immune response and has been found to be causally associated to obesity-related traits .
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The thyroid gland is a frequent site of abnormal epithelial cell proliferation. Proliferative diseases of the thyroid follicular cells that arise as either sporadic or nontoxic multinodular goiter progress to neoplasia in 5% of all cases. In addition, the incidence of thyroid cancer has risen rapidly over the past few years. In terms of histology, this endocrine malignancy predominantly comprises papillary thyroid cancer and follicular thyroid cancer, whereas medullary thyroid cancer and anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) occur less frequently. Nonetheless, ATC is considered one of the most aggressive forms of human neoplasia and is refractory to conventional therapeutic strategies. Innovative approaches are, therefore, currently underway to investigate novel treatments for thyroid proliferative disease. For example, statins have been reported to affect proliferation and survival of several tumor cell types (including thyroid) and display in vivo antitumor activity when used as single agents or in combination with other anticancer drugs .
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Some neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, have been implicated in adjusting a person's mood. The circadian clock mechanisms, meanwhile, keep the organism's physiology tuned for appropriate responses to day or night. Hampp et al. have demonstrated how the molecular signaling pathways for circadian rhythms might intersect with the brain's establishment of general mood. They found that the promoter of the gene encoding monoamine oxidase A, which stabilizes some aspects of mood and breaks down dopamine and serotonin, contains binding sites for several clock proteins and showed that circadian oscillation was driven by the Maoa promoter in neuroblastoma cells. Mice lacking Per2, a gene that stabilizes circadian rhythms, showed damped expression from the Maoa promoter. Observations of the Per2 mutant mice in response to an unavoidable problematic situation--taken as a proxy for despair in humans--showed correlations with disorders of mood. .
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A protein that determines whether breast cancer will spread and become deadly has been found. Researchers say that the protein, which is found inside the nuclei of cells, would be difficult and potentially dangerous to target with drugs. But monitoring for the protein could help patients to know how dangerous their cancer is before it spreads elsewhere, and help them to decide which treatment to chose. .
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You can't buy happiness but it looks like you can at least inherit it, British and Australian researchers said on Thursday. A study of nearly 1,000 pairs of identical and non-identical twins found genes control half the personality traits that make people happy while factors such as relationships, health and careers are responsible for the rest of our well-being. "We found that around half the differences in happiness were genetic," said Tim Bates, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who led the study. "It is really quite surprising." .
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The completion of genome sequences and subsequent high-throughput mapping of molecular networks have allowed us to study biology from the network perspective. Experimental, statistical and mathematical modeling approaches have been employed to study the structure, function and dynamics of molecular networks, and begin to reveal important links of various network properties to the functions of the biological systems .
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In the News of the Week story "Trials of NIH's AIDS vaccine get a yellow light" J. Cohen and B. Lester report on the NIH Vaccine Research Center (VRC) AIDS vaccine trial that was put on hold, and they discuss whether the initiative should be continued. The VRC AIDS vaccine is based on an adenovirus 5 (Ad5) vector similar to the Merck STEP vaccine for which the trial was halted earlier this year .
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One of the hallmarks of advanced malignancies is continuous cell growth and this almost universally correlates with the reactivation of telomerase. Although there is still much we do not understand about the regulation of telomerase, it remains a very attractive and novel target for cancer therapeutics. Several clinical trials have been initiated, and in this review we highlight some of the most promising approaches and conclude by speculating on the role of telomerase in cancer stem cells .
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First, asthma cases shot up, along with hay fever and other common allergic reactions, such as eczema. Then, pediatricians started seeing more children with food allergies. Now, experts are increasingly convinced that a suspected jump in lupus, multiple sclerosis and other afflictions caused by misfiring immune systems is real .
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In mammals, the ability of a female to remain fertile depends on the continuous activation of oocyte-containing follicles from their dormant state in the ovary. Menopause, or the natural end of the female reproductive cycle, occurs when the primordial follicle pool has been exhausted. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying follicle activation have been poorly understood. Now, in a report that Pten, a gene best known for its role as a tumor suppressor, plays a vital role in regulating this process .
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Understanding the neuropathology of multiple sclerosis (MS) is essential for improved therapies. Therefore, identification of targets specific to pathological types of MS may have therapeutic benefits. Here we identify, by laser-capture microdissection and proteomics, proteins unique to three major types of MS lesions: acute plaque, .
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Small-molecule cofactors are widely used in biological systems to augment or alter the function of a biomolecular partner. For example, cofactors participate in electron-transfer reactions catalyzed by redox enzymes. In 2000, Simeonov et al. inverted this paradigm, reporting a system in which proteins (specifically, monoclonal antibodies) acted as cofactors for activating the fluorescence of a small molecule (a trans-stilbene derivative). The resulting complexes have since been used to make fluorescent biosensors for various analytes. .
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Antidepressants of the "Prozac generation" have been hailed as miracle drugs and they're a multibillion-dollar boon to the pharmaceutical industry. But a controversial new study claims that the drugs, which largely replaced older medicines in the 1990s, do little good for the vast majority of patients who take them. Only in the most severely depressed people do these so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) really outperform placeboes, according to the paper, which analyzed both published and unpublished studies .
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Assisted reproductive technologies are increasingly used in the treatment of both male and female infertility. The techniques, including in vitro fertilization, with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection as an adjunctive treatment, represent a tremendous step forward for infertile couples who previously had no treatment options. As we move towards the 30th anniversary of the birth of the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization, questions about the safety of these procedures linger. We review here the available literature regarding the safety of assisted reproductive technologies; these data are made far more robust by the inclusion of long-term follow-up data from the first generation of children arising after the introduction of these technologies. .
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Imagine if we could peek through the skull to see what makes one brain smarter than another. Or to discover whether hidden traits might be driving a person's schizophrenia or dyslexia. A new kind of imaging technique is helping scientists observe such evidence, and it is revealing a surprise: intelligence, and a variety of mental syndromes, may be influenced by tracts within the brain made exclusively of white matter .
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In a new study, rats were spared the limb-weakening effects of a stroke if they were treated with brain tissue cultivated from human embryonic stem cells. But unlike similar experiments, the transplanted cells gave no sign of causing tumors, according to a report this week in the online journal PLoS One. Researchers say that if they can build a string of such successes in a range of animal models, they can make a stronger case for testing the cells in people. "This is really exciting, just to overcome this obstacle of tumorigenicity," says Stanford University stem cell biologist Marcel Daadi, a co-author of the study .
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Over two metres of DNA is packaged into each nucleus in the human body in a manner that still allows for gene regulation. This remarkable feat is accomplished by the wrapping of DNA around histone proteins in repeating units of nucleosomes to form a structure known as chromatin. This chromatin structure is subject to various modifications that have profound influences on gene expression. Recently developed techniques to study chromatin modifications at a genome-wide scale are now allowing researchers to probe the complex components that make up epigenomes. Here we review genome-wide approaches to studying epigenomic structure and the exciting findings that have been obtained using these technologies .
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Stroke is a major public health problem. The female population carries a higher stroke burden than the male population, both because females have a longer life expectancy and because most stroke deaths occur in women. Differences between the sexes in relation to stroke are increasingly being recognized; for example, among stroke survivors, women tend to have worse outcomes than men, as indicated by more-severe disability and an increased likelihood o f institutionalization in women. Women and men with stroke also differ in their risk factor profiles, and they respond differently to primary-prevention and acute stroke treatment. Women experience variations in endogenous estrogens throughout their life cycle and might also be exposed to exogenous estrogens, both of which markedly affect the brain. An understanding of the effects of endogenous and exogenous estrogens on cerebral hemodynamics could guide research into explaining how hormone therapy increases the risk of stroke in postmenopausal women. This Review summarizes the sex differences related to stroke, and the effect of endogenous and exogenous hormones on the cerebrovasculature of the female brain. It also proposes potential research approaches, the results of which could fill in gaps in our knowledge regarding the mechanism of action of estrogen in the brain. .
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The government abruptly halted aggressive treatment in a major study of diabetes and heart disease after a surprising number of deaths among patients who pushed their blood sugar to super-lows - findings that call into question a growing movement in diabetes care. Wednesday's move doesn't affect health guidelines for most Type 2 diabetics, but it raises concern about a particularly vulnerable group: Patients at especially high risk of heart attack or stroke .
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There has been long-standing uncertainty about the impact of kinship or consanguinity between spouses on the total number of offspring they produce (completed fertility). Previous studies have reported that related human couples tend to produce more children than unrelated couples but have been unable to determine whether this difference is biological or stems from socioeconomic variables. Our results, drawn from all known couples of the Icelandic population born between 1800 and 1965, show a significant positive association between kinship and fertility, with the greatest reproductive success observed for couples related at the level of third and fourth cousins. .
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Brain scans of people in chronic pain show a state of constant activity in areas that should be at rest, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday, a finding that could help explain why pain patients have higher rates of depression, anxiety and other disorders. They said chronic pain seems to alter the way people process information that is unrelated to pain. "It seems that enduring pain for a long time affects brain function in response to even minimally demanding attention tasks completely unrelated to pain," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Neuroscience .
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Men who talked more than 4 hours a day had lowest counts, study says Spending hours on a cell phone each day may affect the quality of a man's sperm, preliminary research suggests. In a study of 361 men seen at their infertility clinic, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found an association between the patients' cell phone use and their sperm quality .
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British scientists have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and one man, a procedure that could potentially prevent conditions including epilepsy, diabetes and heart failure. .
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HIV is a remarkably simple virus, equipped with only 9 genes that code for a mere 15 proteins. As a result, the virus must exploit multiple host cell functions in order to ensure its own survival and replication. Brass et al. described their systematic approach to identifying which host human proteins in particular are required for HIV infection. Using RNA interference (RNAi) technology, which enables researchers to inhibit the expression of specific genes one at a time, the team screened more than 20,000 human genes and identified 273 HIV-dependency factors -- proteins that help the virus wreak its havoc on the immune system .
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Familial isolated primary hyperparathyroidism (FIHP) is an autosomal dominant disorder that can represent an early stage of either the multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) or hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumor (HPT-JT) syndromes; alternatively, the condition can be caused by an allelic variant of MEN1 or HRPT2 (hyperparathyroidism 2 gene), or caused by a distinct entity involving another locus. We have explored these possibilities in a patient with primary hyperparathyroidism, whose mother had a history of renal calculi and primary hyperparathyroidism. .
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Scientists in California say they have produced embryos that are clones of two men, a potential step toward developing scientifically valuable stem cells. The new report documents embryos made with ordinary skin cells. But it's not the first time human cloned embryos have been made. In 2005, for example, scientists in Britain reported using embryonic stem cells to produce a cloned embryo. It matured enough to produce stem cells, but none were extracted .
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By studying blood cells in a young pair of twins, scientists say they're gaining new insight into how some children are poised to develop leukemia even before birth. The researchers report in a new study that both twins -- one who developed leukemia and one who didn't -- shared cells that mutated and became precancerous. In one of the twins, the cancer-ready cells developed enough mutations to sicken the child. The findings are a "first look at the earliest events in the process that ultimately leads to leukemia," said study co-author Tariq Enver, a professor at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England .
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A glitch in the way cells clear damaged proteins could be the trigger for the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, researchers said in a finding that could lead to new treatments for the incurable condition. The U.S. team focused on a process called autophagy in which cells digest and recycle damaged molecules, including proteins, that develop as cells grow older. This system essentially renews cells to keep them functioning properly. .
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1. It's All About Me and 2. Human Genetic Variation .
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A component found in semen can enhance HIV transmission by as much as 100,000-fold, researchers have found. The results, if verified in a clinical setting, could identify a new way to help prevent the spread of the disease. "I think this is tremendous," says Christopher Pilcher, an HIV researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not affiliated with the study. "It raises a lot of really fundamental questions about how HIV is transmitted" .
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The complement cascade is part of the body's innate immune defense: a protein work crew whose duties include tagging bacteria and other bad guys for elimination. A new study suggests that complement proteins may have a surprising yet analogous function in the developing brain, tagging unwanted synapses for removal. The work also hints that these proteins may promote synapse loss in early stages of neurodegenerative disease .
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Some parents will try anything to influence the sex of their child. Eat meat if you want a boy, some say; fish and vegetables for a girl. Now, a new mouse study indicates that the belief that a mother's diet can influence a baby's sex is not so far-fetched. By altering a female mouse's blood-glucose levels around conception time, researchers skewed the sex ratio of the resulting offspring .
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Telomerase and telomeres are attractive targets for anticancer therapy. This is supported by the fact that the majority of human cancers express the enzyme telomerase which is essential to maintain their telomere length and thus, to ensure indefinite cell proliferation - a hallmark of cancer. Tumours have relatively shorter telomeres compared to normal cell types, opening the possibility that human cancers may be considerably more susceptible to killing by agents that inhibit telomere replication than normal cells. Advances in the understanding of the regulation of telomerase activity and the telomere structure, as well as the identification of telomerase and telomere associated binding proteins have opened new avenues for therapeutic intervention .
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More than 40 years after beta blockers were first used clinically, scientists can finally get a detailed, three-dimensional look at the drugs' molecular target-the beta2-adrenergic receptor. This receptor hails from a family of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that control critical bodily functions, several of our senses, and the action of about half of today's pharmaceuticals. Because this is the first known structure of a human GPCR, the work promises not only to speed the discovery of new and improved drugs, but also to broaden our understanding of human health and disease .
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An antibody therapy that's approved to treat certain cancers and arthritis has helped prevent--and even beat back--type 1 diabetes in mice. The news is heartening to researchers, who had already launched a human trial of the therapy, rituximab. But it also raises concerns that diabetes patients and their doctors will start trying the drug before it's been shown to work in humans .
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Until recently, genetic variation between people, accounting for everything from differences in hair color to predisposition to illness were attributed to flaws in genetic coding known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). But a new study argues that a genetic material's arrangement-along with changes in that DNA construct, such as insertion, deletion or rearrangement of segments of code within the genome-plays a more important role .
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Researchers in Wisconsin and Japan have turned ordinary human skin cells into what are effectively embryonic stem cells without using embryos or women's eggs -- the two hitherto essential ingredients that have embroiled the medically promising field in a long political and ethical debate .
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In the clinic, tumour dormancy is observed in local recurrences or metastases. It usually refers to the time after treatment that a patient is asymptomatic but still carries local remnant or disseminated tumour cells that do not grow into overt lesions. .
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Some microorganisms are evolutionary puzzles in that their genomes contain encrypted genes that are descrambled into gene products. In Oct 19, 2007 issue of science, a group of scientists reported a fully scrambled mitochondrial genome in diplonema papillatum, a free living relative of disease causing trypanosome. In a separate article, scientists have reported a set of scrambled transfer RNA genes in the nuclear genome of the red alga. The findings are remainders that genome sequence can be a far cry from knowledge of gene products .
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A DNA modification that was originally conceived for the toolkits of biochemists and gene therapy researchers occurs naturally in bacteria (Nature Chem. Biol., DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.2007.39). The variation, in which a sulfur atom replaces one of the nonbridging oxygen atoms in a phosphate group that links DNA nucleotides together, is called phosphorothioation and is the first known physiological modification of DNA's backbone .
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Simple biological computer may someday perform complex diagnoses of cancer and other diseases from inside individual cells. Researchers have designed a new type of DNA computer that works in human cells, perhaps paving the way for a distant technology capable of picking out diseased cells from otherwise healthy tissue. The system runs on a process called RNA interference (RNAi) in which small molecules of RNA prevent a gene from producing protein .
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A virus that was instrumental in eradicating smallpox is now showing promise as a potential cancer treatment. A genetically engineered strain of vaccinia, better known as the smallpox vaccine, kept rabbits' liver tumors in check in a new study. The virus is now headed toward trials with human patients. Scientists have been trying to genetically engineer viruses to selectively infect and destroy cancer cells for more than 10 years, but with limited success. The most advanced so far is ONYX-015, a treatment for head and neck cancer based on an adenovirus--the cause of the common cold--that was approved in China in 2005. A team led by Stephen Thorne, a virologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, decided to see if vaccinia viruses might be better suited for knocking out cance.
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Eat your vegetables, they say, but a new study might make you want to rub them on your skin instead. The paper shows that an ingredient extracted from broccoli can help prevent sunburn damage. The researchers hope that the findings will eventually lead to a new type of sun protection that perks up the body's own defenses. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation and many chemical compounds cause oxidative damage to our DNA, which can lead to cancer. Humans have a natural defense system to break down these oxidizing agents, but UV radiation doesn't kick it into high gear. That's why cancer researchers have been looking for ways to activate these natural antioxidants.
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A group of researchers has discovered a mechanism that helps protect deer mice from hantavirus even though the rodents carry the life-threatening disease. The research could pave the way for new therapies for treating hantavirus and other so-called zoonotic diseases transmitted to humans by animals _ a huge class that includes SARS, rabies, influenza and AIDS.
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Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding questions like how pollution eats away at the ozone layer. Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhaust and even why even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
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Albert Fert of France and German Peter Gruenberg won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a discovery that lets billions of computer users store reams of data on computer hard drives.
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Two American scientists and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a powerful technique for manipulating mouse genes. The widely used process has helped scientists use mice to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.
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British novelist Doris Lessing won the 2007 Nobel Prize for a body of work that delved into human relationships and inspired a generation of feminist writers, the Swedish Academy said on Thursday.
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Scientists have discovered a tumor cell that divides itself to produce identical copy of the cell. Such tumor cells are present in almost all type of cancer and this is an important characteristic of a stem cells. Is this the main factor of reoccurring of the cancer after radiation and/or chemotherapy? It may be a potential target for finding cure for the cancer.
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Scientists have discovered multiple genetic and pharmacological techniques to improve memory as well as determined the mechanism of memory malfunctions. Read more at
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RNA has ruled the world. Life began with the appearance of the first self copying RNA molecule. The initial factors DNA, RNA and proteins where RNA is the first gave the genetic definition of life. However, an alternative group of theories that can employ these materials have existed before and used law of thermodynamics (a localized region that increases in order i.e. decrease in entropy through cycle driven by an energy flow. Read the interesting article by Robert Shapiro at
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Drug makes are eager to develop medicines targeted at ethnic group. Read the article by Jonathan Kahn at
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High impact scientific journal have trend of publishing erroneous crystal structures of significantly important biological molecules
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